Dvostrana ikona iz Kotora - Imago pietatis i Bogorodica sa Hristom - u svetlu religiozne prakse bratovštine flagelanata

Abstract

The iconography of the diptych icon (kept in the treasury of the cathedral church of St. Tryphon in Kotor), painted for the requirements of the Holy Cross brotherhood, most probably by Djuradj Basilj in 1468, is analysed in the context of the devotional practice of the Kotor flagellants. One side of the diptych depicts the Virgin with the Christ Child lyingon her lap, while the other side consists of the Imago pietatis. Besides these icons, the author considers the written sources recording the pious activities and penitent self-flagellation practised by the brotherhood of the Holy Cross, other paintings that were done for the Kotor flagellants, as well as those in which the Imago pietatis motif appears. The usual, emblematic image of the flagellant groups was the Imago pietatis. The iconographic elements on the two-sided icon from the cathedral treasury demonstrate thebasic religious postulates the Kotor flagellants adhered to, and these were the experience of Christ's Passion and veneration of the cults of the Blood of Christ and the Quinquepartitum vulnus. There is a particular insistence on the Blood of Christ that is repeatedly emphasised. The iconographic type of the Virgin with the Christ Child, combining the Pieta and the Adoratio, represents a clear allusion to the Passion. In combining the Virgin’s joy and grief in the Imago pietatis, the emotions of piety and love are particularly accentuated. Confirmation of the iconographic motive’s significance in the Imago pietatis for the Kotor flagellants is provided in the fifteenth century relief on the lunette in the Church of the Holy Cross. This relief bearing the image of the Imago pietatis and the Arma Christi also testify to the changes that occurred in the religious practice of the Kotormonastic brotherhood. Like the Venetian brotherhoods of flagellants that served as its model, the practice of self-flag-ellation became a rarity within the Kotor Fraternitas S. Crucis. The relief depicts the flagellants without scourges, and instead they are holding candles and crucifixes in their hands. Crucifixes had special significance in the prayers and services held in the churches of the brotherhood, and they often commissioned their manufacture from the Kotor goldsmiths. Besides the devotion of this monastic brotherhood to the Holy Cross, the strength of this cult among the Kotor flagellants is also illustrated in the fact that a relic of the lignum crucis that Medoje Schabalo had donated to the brotherhood was kept in their church from 1342.